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Weapon Fatigue
The Weapon Fatigue system refers to the condition of weapons found in the World of the Living Dead. In the zombie apocalypse, weapons (both melee weapons and firearms), are roughly handled and not always properly mantained, so they will eventually wear out and break. Fatigue doesn't apply exclusively to weapons. Armors will also deteriorate and break with use. Items have four states of condition, from Excellent to Poor. Items in better conditions have better power (in case of weapons) or better defensive values (in case of armors). * Excellent. Represented by a light green color. It means that the item is in the best shape and retains its full power and durability. * Good: Represented by a dark green color. The item retains most of its power and has still some durability. It will probably last, if maintained and treated well. * Fair: Represented by a yellow color. The item is damaged, but is still in working condition. It has considerably less power and durability, but it can still be useful. * Poor: Represented by a red color. The item is heavily deteriorated, and it could literally fall apart at any moment. The item has lost most of its power and has a low durability. If it gets damaged again, the survivor will automatically discard it as broken. Every time a weapon (or armor) is used, it has a small chance of degrading, the chance being bigger as the condition worsens. Once the item reaches Poor quality, instead of degrading it will be rendered useless and discarded. Two skills help prevent weapon degradation: * Careful Handling - Reduces chance that a melee weapon will be damaged or break when in use. * Gunsmith - Reduces chance that a firearm will be damaged in combat. One skill helps prevent armor degradation: * Armorer - Reduces chance that armor will be damaged in use. Repairs A golf club might be good for a few whacks to the head, but it won’t last long in high z-density, while even an assault rifle has the potential to misbehave if not properly maintained. Soon after the introduction of wear and tear skills to lessen the likelihood of damage occurring were introduced. The Toolbox is a large safehouse upgrade item which allows players to install the Workbench upgrade at any of their personal safehouses. A Workbench can be used for three things: repair, salvage and modification. The Workbench can be accessed at any safehouse at any time, but items need to be in the safehouse for the player to be able to work on them. Using the Workbench is independent of survivor skills. So a player gets the Toolbox back to their safehouse, installs the Workbench and, much like the NECRA Autolab, they can interact with it even when all squads are out and about. Repairs can be performed on any item that has degraded from “excellent” condition. The first step in performing a repair is to obtain the right components. Melee weapons tend to need things such as duct tape (if they can be repaired at all), while firearms need item category specific parts which can be obtained by disassembling, or salvaging, other firearms. Assault rifles need Assault Components, Shotguns need Shotgun Components, and so on. This is obviously a little simplistic, but we feel that it represents a good balance between reality and fun gameplay. Components can be used to repair firearms based on an easily understood approach: the more damaged the item, the more components it will need. Each repair improves the item condition by one step: a “poor” item will go to “fair”, a “fair” item will go to “good”, while a “good” item can be repaired to “excellent”. The modification of items is being introduced in a low-key way in WotLD: Resurrection. The system allows for the extensive modification of melee weapons and firearms, but we’re going to start off with straightforward, more realistic mods, such as adding an optical scope or a red dot sight to firearms, or using duct tape to give an assault weapon a dual magazine. More mods will be added in future, once we’re happy that it all works nicely with a few thousand players running around the game universe.